Heading into the 10th episode of The Traitors: New Blood, Wyatt Gillespie, Kriste Lewis and Joe Vanella were among the names being considered for the game’s next banishment. Wyatt is on the radar as the No. 1 suspect of a Faithful who has since been murdered; Kriste is suspected of having been recruited early in the game; and Joe is still in the hot seat because of Victor Vollbrechthausen’s #fruitgate theory.
Following the Round Table, the Traitors have another decision to make, unaware that Victor grabbed the protective Shield at the previous mission and cannot be murdered. Then, the seventh mission plays out as the Traitors are put in their most precarious position yet.
After six missions and one successful banishment, the players’ prize pot sits at $145,300. Playing as Traitors are Joe and Katie Fites. The remaining Faithful are Shane Beatty, Abbey Benjamin, Wyatt Gillespie, Kriste Lewis, Ben McDonnell, Clyde Moser, Jay Vinnedge, and Victor Vollbrechthausen.
Read on for our recap of the important moments from Episode 10 of The Traitors: New Blood, titled “The Sun, the Moon and the Truth,” which aired Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. PT on NBC.
The Round Table
When Kriste opens the Round Table with her accusation of Wyatt, Shane quickly comes to his defense and pushes back on Kriste’s reasons for suspecting Wyatt of being a Traitor. Kriste points out that a “little clique” has formed among the guys (Shane, Wyatt and Victor), in which they defend Wyatt with reasons that are in direct conflict with why they accuse her. Wyatt then turns the heat on Joe, claiming that he’s “too nice” either because he’s “hiding something or it’s a facade.” Victor adds that Tomica Adams’ status as a Traitor further incriminates Joe, since she looked to him for help when she was on the ropes at the Round Table.
During the vote, Shane is the only player to vote for Kriste’s banishment, and only the two Traitors and Kriste are on board to banish Wyatt, leaving a majority of six that ultimately banishes Joe. For the second time, the Faithful get it right, adding another $15,000 to their prize pot and leaving Katie with a tough decision to make as the only Traitor remaining in the game.
Ultimatum
Knowing she’s in a “really hard spot” on her own and that Victor has earned so much goodwill among the Faithful, Katie tries to figure out his next move. She learns that his eyes are on Jay, who was remarkably emotional about voting against Joe. While Katie is not on Victor’s list of targets, she is on the minds of Kriste and Ben for different reasons: Kriste thinks there must be someone young (so Katie or Wyatt), and Ben thinks she has played it “too cool.”
Meanwhile, Victor only trusts Shane. To keep Shane off the hit list for the next murder, Victor first confesses that he has the Shield, then tells others that he thinks Shane got it.
Alone in the turret later, Katie is instructed to offer one player the ultimatum that they must join her as a Traitor or be murdered. She debates whether to recruit Shane or Victor, worrying that Shane might not accept it or that Victor would use his power over the Faithful against her, but ultimately selects Shane. When she meets him face to face later, she tells him that he’d be a great Traitor because no one suspects him and she trusts him more than anyone.
Shane accepts “with open arms” and joins Katie in the turret, where they consider who to hit with the next murder. Shane commits to Katie that he “won’t let any of the boys” banish her and informs her that Victor has the Shield, narrowing their choices to Ben, Clyde and Abbey. At breakfast the next morning, it’s revealed that Ben has been murdered and that Katie willingly takes on the heat of a “double bluff” by killing the person most consistently saying her name.
The Mission
For the seventh mission, Alan Cumming brings the remaining players to a barn-like setting, where they dig through troughs in a race to build individual Shield-shaped puzzles. At four specific intervals, the players are all stopped and blindfolded while the Traitors get an opportunity to steal pieces from their puzzles and add them to their own at the center of the room. The mission ends after four rounds or when the Traitors’ puzzle is complete (worth $26,000); any completed puzzles at that point become Shields for those players.
The game lasts three rounds before Shane and Katie are able to complete the Traitors’ puzzle. Though six people have completed puzzles prior to the end, Shane strategically decides to leave only Jay, Wyatt and Abbey’s puzzles together while sabotaging his own and those of Clyde and Victor. Because the Traitors were forced to move around the blindfolded players in order to complete the mission, the Faithful obtain potentially incriminating evidence: floorboards creaking under the weight of heavy footsteps (Victor hilariously attributes these to Kriste), suspiciously incomplete puzzles (Clyde spots this with Katie), and the sound of puzzle pieces falling (Clyde hears this from Shane’s direction in the last seconds).
The first season of The Traitors: New Blood concludes next week with Episode 11 and the Episode 12 finale.
